Conveyancing - cheap AND competent? - a pipe dream?

cardiffgull

Hi All,

In the process of buying a house and looking to instruct a solicitor for my conveyancing. With a mind on costs, i paid a deposit on the cheapest i could find, Wolstenholmes. Big mistake, as Halifax informed me they have been struck off their list, and as such i will need to find someone else.

So fingers burned, i am looking for another solicitor, but all seem to charge around the 700-750 mark. Is anyone aware of any solicitors, prefereably in South Wales area, that charge between 500-550 pounds, and are prompt and professional?

Any help would be most appreciated.

billyboy11

Dont do cheap.,,, it will never pay off... Believe me,, my chain is in a nightmare because of one cheap solicitor...

cardiffgull

billyboy11 wrote: »

Dont do cheap.,,, it will never pay off... Believe me,, my chain is in a nightmare because of one cheap solicitor...

Yes the more i look into it the more i agree...plus i now have the potential problem of getting my £300 deposit back from these cowboys! Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

billyboy11

cardiffgull wrote: »

Yes the more i look into it the more i agree...plus i now have the potential problem of getting my £300 deposit back from these cowboys! Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Try, you may have to right it off, depends on the contract you signed..

From experience, go local with someone who has been recommended.

Pssst

I think solicitors prefer to keep conveyancing cloaked in secrecy. A black art which the Necromancer keeps to himself. Truth is that landreg and conveyancing has been much speeded up by the provision of online accounts to the land reg for conveyancers. They do insist on shuffling bits of paper back and forth to delay,complicate and justify their charges.

hostman

You should never have to pay anything up front. The guy I use will typically charge £420, due immediately after completion. With that there are disbursements, such as bank telegraphic fee etc.

I would provide the details to you, but I have sale going through him now so I don't want to over burden him and potentially slow my sale and purchase down

mortgagewizzard

cardiffgull wrote: »

Hi All,

In the process of buying a house and looking to instruct a solicitor for my conveyancing. With a mind on costs, i paid a deposit on the cheapest i could find, Wolstenholmes. Big mistake, as Halifax informed me they have been struck off their list, and as such i will need to find someone else.

So fingers burned, i am looking for another solicitor, but all seem to charge around the 700-750 mark. Is anyone aware of any solicitors, prefereably in South Wales area, that charge between 500-550 pounds, and are prompt and professional?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Hi cardiffgull, I can point you in the direction of some decent solicitors that I have used before, and you can see the feedback left from other people. If you can you let me know what the purchase price is, I can get a quote for you.

Regards

Thrugelmir

Pssst wrote: »

I think solicitors prefer to keep conveyancing cloaked in secrecy. A black art which the Necromancer keeps to himself. Truth is that landreg and conveyancing has been much speeded up by the provision of online accounts to the land reg for conveyancers. They do insist on shuffling bits of paper back and forth to delay,complicate and justify their charges.

Thats rather simplistic.

Always choose a reputable firm of local solicitors with a dedicated conveyancing team not one individual. Well worth the money in my experience. As a good one will point matters that you will not be aware of.

JayZed

billyboy11 wrote: »

Dont do cheap.,,, it will never pay off... Believe me,, my chain is in a nightmare because of one cheap solicitor...

Seconded. My experience is that cheapo conveyancers are simply not worth the savings.

Richard_Webster

I think solicitors prefer to keep conveyancing cloaked in secrecy. A black art which the Necromancer keeps to himself. Truth is that landreg and conveyancing has been much speeded up by the provision of online accounts to the land reg for conveyancers. They do insist on shuffling bits of paper back and forth to delay,complicate and justify their charges.

If you manage to buy a house without using a solicitor then if later you can't sell it because of a legal problem a solicitor would have spotted but you wouldn't have spotted, you have only yourself to blame.

enion

We are currently using a solicitor firm in Cardiff. I'm not sure to what extent they can be recommended as we're still only at the beginning of the whole buying thing (contracts not even seen yet) but so far they seem ok. They are at jmdlaw.co.uk (I hope I'm allowed to post this?)

They weren't recommended to us but instead what we did was:
* from the Law Society's website (lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/findasolicitor.law) we chose about 20 odd solicitor firms that had websites (so that we could check if they definitely do conveyancing)
* then we emailed most of them with specific requirements (no sale no fee, will reply to emails promptly etc.), specified what we're buying and for how much and asked for quotes
* compared the quotes we received and the time it took them to reply
* took the lowest quote we received and asked the best firm to match it
* they said ok - so we chose them. Coincidentally the best firm also was the first one to reply to us.

Of course this is not a foolproof method but probably next best thing to having the conveyancer recommended to you...